By Jo Nova
It’s something to be proud of: Russia, Australia and USA have the biggest Greenhouse Gas Export footprint on Earth. It’s a bizarrely contrived title though, where we have to ignore domestic emissions and blame countries instead for the fuels they dig up which someone else uses. (You know they want to).
We could play this game in so many ways. If China uses Australian coal to make a fridge, do those emissions belong to Australia, or China or to the Norwegian who bought the fridge? Correct answer: “all three”. The game of emissions mobile-blame means the shame can be applied to whichever patsy is the most useful. Double counting is not a mistake, it’s a marketing tool.
In a normal world, no one is responsible for what someone does with goods they sold, but in green economics, comrade, it all belongs to the Party.
You are supposed to badger and harass the people you sold the goods to, to ask them not to use it:
[Dr Gillian Moon] said if Australia was serious about its climate commitments, it should be doing more to encourage countries that bought its fossil fuels – particularly the developed economies Japan, South Korea and Taiwan that take about two-thirds of its exports – to move more rapidly to renewable energy. She said it should be having similar discussions with like-minded fossil fuel exporters, such as Canada and Norway. (From The Guardian, linked below).
What this graph really shows is who is the Great Global Patsy — not Russia, because they are not working directly against their own economic interest, but Australia — the nation which stands to lose the most money per capita due to the demonization of fossil fuels, and which aids and abets the carbon-hate all the way, and never spends a cent to audit the UN Committee. This one-sided study was, of course, done in Australia. It was put together by the UNSW “Human Rights” Institute which spent exactly no minutes thinking about the human rights of poor people who want to be warm and buy our coal. Nor did they consider the starving kids of Haiti who benefit from cheaper food grown in a world with bountiful CO2.
The US has larger fossil fuel exports than Australia, but we export more coal, which is a more “emissions intensive fuel”, they say, so we export more emissions. (They should pay us for the coal, the oil, the gas, the fertilizer, and the warmer weather).
Source:Climate Analytics
Australian fossil fuel exports ranked second only to Russia for climate damage with ‘no plan’ for reduction
Adam Morton, The Guardian
Australia’s coal and gas exports cause more climate damage than those from any other country bar Russia, according to a new study that argues the country is undermining a global agreement to transition away from fossil fuels.
The analysis, commissioned by the University of New South Wales’ Australian Human Rights Institute, found Australia was the third biggest fossil fuel exporter on an energy basis in 2021, trailing only Russia and the US.
See also The Conversion:*
Dug up in Australia, burned around the world – exporting fossil fuels undermines climate targets
Australia mainly exports fossil fuels to Japan, China, South Korea and India. These countries, which accounted for about 43% of fossil fuel CO₂ emissions in 2022, are also signatories to the Paris Agreement. So they have set 2030 emissions reduction targets and net-zero goals of their own. Continuing to import fossil fuels is incompatible with their own commitments.
*It is hardly a Conversation while they ban skeptical opinions, eh?